erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
You seem to be using the word "cabal" here in a sense that is neither derogatory nor ironic. I find that highly disturbing.
You may find it disturbing, but the truth is that there are people like Jimbo who can make high level decisions, and there are sysops that have more power than ordinary users. Many of these decisions already happen in places that most people don't know about (e.g. the mailing list). Glossing over the truth doesn't make it go away: there is a Wikipedia cabal.
Hush! ;-)
I have already suggested a voting scheme that would democratize the decision processes by the inevitable administration. Aside from extreme opinions like "voting doesn't work", I see few arguments against that. We need to talk openly about this kind of stuff, or what you find disturbing will turn into a nightmare eventually.
Which reminds me: For future issues, we could set up a special "voting" page at the wikipedia, where proposals can be submitted (with several options to choose from, including "just leave it as it is"), where every logged-in wikipedian can vote (once!), with a time limit (say, one or two weeks) so everyone get a chance to vote, but it won't hang there forever. Democratic enough?
<snip explanation>
Why not use Larry's proposed read-only 'pedia instead? A new skin and a few restrictions (that would be set to "unrestricted" for wikipedia, of course), a nice little server, done :-)
Magnus